How Faster are the Intel processor and Radeon Pro 450 / 455 / 460 GPU on the New MacBook Pro 15 2016?

Apple has just announced the new MacBook Pro 15 2016 and it’s considered a revolutionary product to celebrate 25 year anniversary of Apple’s notebooks. Apple made some interesting comparison between the new MacBook and the PowerBook, and as you expected, the MacBook is 6.8 million times faster.

New GPUs on MacBook Pro 15 2016

The new OLED Touch Bar is obviously the most prominent new feature in the new MacBook lineup and it will appear on both the 13-inch and 15-inch versions. Besides, the new MacBook 15 receives some important upgrades that make it the most powerful Apple notebook ever, a great option for high-end professional users.

In terms of tech specs, the MacBook Pro is powered by the quad-core Intel i7 processor, 14nm AMD Radeon Pro 450 / 455 / 460 graphics with Polaris architecture and up to 2GB of memory, 16GB of RAM and Superfast PCIe-based SSD. The performance is top notch, specifically, the 3D graphics is 130% faster, gaming performance is 60% faster and video editing with Final Cut Pro X is 57% faster than the previous generation of MacBook Pro 15.

If you are interested in the extra power, the better display, the new Touch Bar, Touch ID fingerprint scanner or USB-C connectors, you can order the MacBook Pro 15 2016 right now. It is available in Silver and Space Grey colors.

Its price starts at $2,399 for the 256GB of SSD, Radeon Pro 450 GPU and 2.6GHz Intel Core i7 processor. The more powerful version with 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz), Radeon Pro 455 GPU and 512GB of SSD will cost you $2,799.

You can also configure your MacBook Pro and get up to 2.9GHz Intel Core i7 with 8MB shared L3 cache, Radeon Pro 460 with 4GB of GDDR5 memory and 2TB PCIe-based onboard SSD. The maxed-out option will set you back $4,299.

All of the Radeon Pro GPUs provide the memory bandwidth of 80 GB/s, feature Polaris architecture with 4th generation Graphics Core Next, 3 billion transistors, HDMI 2.0 support via USB Type-C port, and the TDW of under 35W. Notably, the Radeon Pro 400 series is the thinnest GPU family on the market. They are good enough for content creators but serious gamers will struggle to have acceptable frame rate on the machine, laptops with NVIDIA GTX 1080 are still the best options for gaming at high settings.

In comparison, here are the differences in peak performance, compute units and stream processors of the Radeon Pro 450, 455 and 460.

GPU

Peak Performance

Compute Units

Stream Processors

Radeon Pro 450

1 teraflop

10

640

Radeon Pro 455

1.3 teraflops

12

768

Radeon Pro 460

1.86 teraflops

16

1024

The Radeon Pro 450 on the lowest-priced MacBook Pro has the peak FP32 performance of just 1 teraflop. It is significantly lower than NVIDIA Pascal-based GeForce GTX 10-Series (up to 9 teraflops on GTX 1080) and Radeon RX 460 (2.2 teraflops). However, its advantages are the small size and power efficiency. Besides, Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller said that they use just 16GB of RAM to save the battery. Obviously, the compact footprint and battery life are prioritized in the new generation of MacBook Pro.

Radeon Pro GPU Benchmarks

Some testers benchmarked the new GPUs and compared them to the ones on older MacBooks like Iris 450, Iris 550, Iris 6100, Iris 5200, Radeon R9 M370X or HD515. Following are the scores.

Cinebench R15, OpenGL test

Geekbench 4.0.1, OpenCL benchmark

Comments

This is underwhelming. The low end 3D graphics makes excludes this from being a tool for pro 3D content creators. VR is a future looking market is and Apple can’t offer a solution to creators. It’s only catering for the past. Do I wait another four years to see if Apple are taking pro creators seriously? Now i either have to abandon Macs or carry two laptops…guess which is most likely.

But how reliable are Hackintosh’s for day to day work. I guess you cannot just update apps or the OS if a new update was released.
I am not saying I would not lean towards a Hackintosh – I do – but since I need a reliable machine that works everyday without problems and hiccups I guess a Hackintosh is not for me – or what do you think?

$2400 for crapola graphics and a flipping 256GB hard drive?
What is this? 2008? That’s about the hard drive space it came with and even 512GB is not enough for content creation. Yes, it’s an SSD, but looking at the requirements back then, it was a better deal at $1680 I paid for it in late 2008 (discounted since the new model was coming out that was NOT better either). 1TB SSD drives are around $300. Considering the “trade-in” if you configure a higher capacity drive at configuration, the “Apple tax” is simply outrageous as usual.

I’m ready to get a new notebook, but I was waiting for Thunderbolt III. AT LEAST it has that much with the modern USB-C ports (sucks for adapters, but it’s what everything will have shortly and with a hub at home, it wouldn’t be a big deal…except that the damn notebook costs $2400 with a CRAP CONFIGURATION. To make this thing usable, you need to spend at LEAST $2800. To get a decent drive in there and the maxed out graphics card, you’re at over $3000!!!!! I remember when the Mac Pro (the REAL one that you could add PCI cards to and upgrade it yourself) used to cost under $2400. Now the BASE MODEL is $3000 and it’s THREE YEARS OLD and the price has NOT been adjusted. You would be buying something completely out of date and Apple can’t even lower the price let alone keep it up-to-date!

So for $3000 you at least get a state-of-the-art machine, right? Nope. You get crappy SLOW graphics as usual. You will need a hub (not cheap) or loads of adapters so that price just keeps ticking higher. What I really wanted Thunderbolt III for is so I can get a hub with a gaming level graphics card and have “ONE MACHINE TO RULE THEM ALL” (i.e. gaming desktop even if I have to boot into Windows plus a desktop Mac that i can just unplug ONE cable and take it with me). That would be awesome, but it means you’d need this theoretical hub with a GPU in it. How much would that cost you? And all this in an age where PCs are getting DIRT CHEAP, Apple just keeps jacking up the price with features NO ONE NEEDS (like that touch bar; will it even show Function keys by default on programs that don’t use it? Many games converted from windows games use function keys and a touch bar isn’t tactile so you basically would need to plug in an external keyboard even to play older games. And I hate to say it, but a notebook that costs $24000-3000+ SHOULD DAMN WELL BE *ABLE* TO PLAY GAMES! You can’t even add more memory (since that would taint the battery scores…yeah what about if you’re docked??? Oh yeah, Apple doesn’t care what “PROS” actually WANT. They just give us whatever crap Jony Ive decides to poop out (and he seems obsessed with THIN to the point of “WTF IS THE POINT?”

It’s sad. Just sad. I really want a new Macbook Pro, bu this isn’t quite the machine I’m looking for. If it cost $1800 with 512GB instead of $2800, I’d deal with it and get the hub, etc. to make it useful as a desktop and hope 16GB is still enough memory 3-4 years from now (since I don’t upgrade every single year). But at this price, they can keep the damn thing. Time to go back to Windows or at least build a Hackintosh. I don’t suppose we’ll see a new Mac Mini (I personally have no interest in iMacs) for another year or two and it will be a POS disappointment like the last update (I’m running a 2012 Mac Mini Server Quad i7 with 2TB internal RAID 0 drives so you can imagine my disappointment with the last update that was a TOY by comparison).

I think the Apple I knew and loved a decade ago is dead and gone, unfortunately. They are only timely in iPhone updates. Macs don’t matter and seem to be designed more for looks like than function (that’s been true of the iMac for some time now and the Mac Mini update proves they don’t want a reasonable option anymore for people that want power but don’t want to spend $3000 for a 3-year old machine that’s totally out of date and looks like a freaking trash can with no way to update it….

Too bad Windows 10 is little more than a key logging NSA tool. Privacy with commercial app support is the main reason I still use OS X, but I can’t go with crap hardware forever and sadly, OS X updates have been little more than “here’s more phone features!” anymore. Metal was a step in the right direction, but it seems to have stalled out for updates and few games make use of it. The Finder is still garbage (slower and slower with no real updates like dual-pane that would make it BETTER to use). It’s absurd that Spotlight doesn’t even have a busy indicator anymore to tell you if it’s even doing anything (just sits there sometimes and I wonder if there’s no results or it’s still looking). SIP more or less indirectly killed many apps that improved OS X like XtraFinder (hard to expect people to use something that takes so much bother to enable) so sadly a shallower crappier OS X is forced on you (probably the reason it’s called macOS now because it’s lower case and flat now).

The last great MBP deal was the early 2011 refurbished. In mid 2012 you could get one refurbished with the hi-res anti-glare screen for $1000, swap out the 5400rpm drive for a 6Gbps SSD ($200), and have a machine that could be user configured/repaired, super fast, glare-free, thunderbolt connected and had legacy ports like FW800, SD slot, etc for $1200.

Now they want you to take the build, however flawed, and re-up when they tweak a graphics card or RAM limit doubles. Apple wants to punish pro users chained to the OS.

Not to mention how they gutted the Mini after 2012 by removing the i7 quad core option.

You make valid points, but your sharpness indicates that you’re forgetting the thousands of years of years of no cars cameras washing machines phones and recordings. Let’s remember to thank the Creater for the technology even when a tad less than perfection.

My sentiments exactly!! I waited and waited for the new MB Pro announcement hoping I could buy a new Mac (and boot to windows to run my racing sims). I get really nice CPUs, but the graphics is just stupid. I can but an MSI laptop weighing 5 lbs with a GTX 1060 and i-7 6700HQ for $1799. I can buy an AORUS with a GTX 1070 or even a GTX 1080 with dual drives, 6820HQ and a 17″ screen (which Apple ditched 8 years ago) still for less than $3K.

Is there any way I can run OS X on one of those machines? I’d gladly pay Apple $200 for their OS if I can since they won’t build the machine I want.

Just do the same as me: Build your e-GPU setup and play your racing simulators. Personally, I purchased Akitio Thunder 2 PCI express box + Geforce GTX 750 TI and I can play iRacing with maximum settings at 1080p.

Apple care more about asthetics and battery life than it does about gaming. if you are going to keep the computer plugged in the whole time then why not build your own computer and play racing sims that way

I love Apple products, but I have a hard time arguing against the commentary here.

I spend a lot of time in “vi” i.e. I want a proper Escape key and I make heavy use of function keys. While I don’t really care for graphics features provided it can play some video, they have delivered a machine that has gone in the wrong direction. macOS doesn’t perform well with small amounts of memory, which really causes problems if you can’t get more than 16GB of RAM. They seem to have been boxed in by the amount of time since the last update, the lack of features they need from Intel plus their power / form factor desires. They’ve jacked up the price, under delivered on on the specs (i.e. RAM) and included the Touch Bar – which is a solution looking for a problem. (I wonder whether they did that to give it a single marketable feature)

It’s difficult to determine whether this is a temporary model (like the iPad 3 was – if only I’d waited 4 or 5 months then) or this is the best they can do for a couple of years. Apart from the iMac, their release schedule for the Macs have become a complete joke. Have they killed the Pro? Have they killed the Mini? Have they killed the Air?

I get the feeling they’ve confused the consumer phone, watch and tablet market with the business Mac market – or we’re just being treated like fools.

I think Apple is starting to struggle and lose it’s way. The camera lenses that protrude from the back of the iPhone and iPad confound me. The iPad now scratches and chips furniture – unless you pay $150 for the front and back covers (they nicely designed them to be painful unless you have both)

I wish Apple would get their shit together as I desperately need to upgrade my Mac laptop, but there is nothing viable to upgrade to.

Extremely disappointed at this move, I realize Apple has been partnered with AMD for awhile to provide their GPU’s but still, Nvidia absolutely killed it this year for high-end card launches, this is a high-end computer with low end GPU hardware. All they needed to do with include a few more fans, vents and heat pipes and they could have gone with a desktop class GTX 1060, which offers 4.3 Tflops of performance and CUDA acceleration for all the editors that use these as their mobile editing rigs. I’ve never been fond of Apple overall, but they continue to make decisions like this one, which makes me like them even less! All of their hardware engineers need to be fired and replaced with people who are aware of current generation hardware, so when you go to spend $3000 USD on a laptop, you have the high end hardware to reflect that price tag.

Also disappointed with their lower end as well, drop the 1080p screen, throw in a sata 3 based m.2 ssd, and an i5-6500U, charge $1100 USD for it, and get rid of the Air line up, like I might actually consider purchasing their hardware if had better specs.

So I’m a little confused when everyone talks about 1080 and 1060 as alternatives.
I get the frustration that you want a all in one computer but:
Do you all realize the 450/55/60 is a 35 Watt chip?
1060 is 75 watts, more than 2x hungrier and hotter?
1070 is 115 watts, more than 3x hungrier and hotter?
1080 is 185 watts, more than 4x hungrier and hotter?
No Sh*t it’s gonna be faster but who the hell wants 50 minute run-time on battery with the GPU??

Here’s a novel idea, consider comparing it to a Nvidia 35 Watt chip, oh wait…. It would get eaten alive and they don’t have any, lol

I would rather have a few hours of dedicated GPU time on battery vs a 50 minute run-time with a 1060 that’s SUPER FAST at gaming…

The 450/5/60 are meant for Final cut and rendering, there is NO mention on ATI’s site about gaming.

If you want to play games and require super high end graphics, get a dedicated gaming machine with rainbow LEDs and spider names. They are fantastic but you need to use Windows and deal with no battery life if you need to use the GPU for work purposes.

Again, I get the frustration but putting a 1070 in a MBP would require a lot more battery to keep it running.

1.) Nvidia optimus means that the discrete graphics don’t need to run all the time, integrated gpu is used
2.) The Razer Blade and Gigabyte Aero 14 manage a 1060 just fine thermally, 85*C core on load, both are thinner than the 2015 MBP
3.) The Aero 14 has 10 hours of battery and my buddy’s 1060 Blade has 14 hours of battery and runs his Vive when off work.
4.) Playing games with the Vive on battery using the 1060 yields 2.5 hours of battery maxing the GPU
5.) He hackintoshed it, it works better than my boss’s MBP 2014 GT 750 in FCP

How can you justify that a 65 (actual laptop 1060 tdp) Watt part would heat it up significantly when Apple’s only cooling strategy is a single heat pipe off of the cpu and gpu meaning that even the 35W chip gets unreasonably hot under load

Therefore I conclude that either you are Amish and don’t like computer graphics, or you are someone who buys 1500 sauvignon and won’t try the 25 dollar bottle to confirm that it’s identical, because he wants to justify his horrible spending habits

On another note I’m willing to help you manage all that extra money you’re bleeding out of your large intestine, consider contacting me at notaponzi and we’ll discuss how to properly manage your finances

Thank you! All of these people complaining that the 2016 15″ MBP with Touch Bar is a subpar machine seriously need to consider the fact that this is a freaking LAPTOP. It’s not a desktop machine that has unlimited access to power capable of reasonably running a GTX 1060 or whatever–the MBP’s are notebook computers that rely on a battery, and given the CPU specs and pretty “meh” AMD GPU’s, having 9+ hours of battery life is pretty impressive. Phil Schiller mentioned in an email reply that the reason they decided to cap the RAM out at 16GB of LPDDR3 is due to energy constraints, which to me is understandable. For well over half of the professional/prosumer base that use the MacBook Pro this year’s machine is pretty great. I’m loving my 15″ w/ Touch Bar…although springing for the AMD 460 instead of 450 would’ve been a bit nicer (although mostly unnecessary for the programming work I do).

All in all this latest MBP is actually a solid machine, so stop hating and being ungrateful that a laptop doesn’t perform the same as an effing gaming desktop!

Completely agree with everything else I read on this page earlier. In my opinion Apple has lost touch with the business users. It feels like Apple sells us a MacBook Pro only to have something to build software for the rest of the consumer devices. As a business user, I see no need the Mac has to look more fancy. Who the hell will need the Touchbar? I am not a visionary, so I question my ad hoc feelings about it but I need to get work done and maybe this is a great future thing but I don’t fall for it now. My suggestion here, make it optional for consumers and better swap it for real graphics cards ready for VR which is a fantastic thing I cannot very well do on a Mac at the moment. Furthermore, nobody in business needs a much thinner device if he loses all sorts of ports, card readers etc. I’d love to see more or upgradable memory and graphics even if I waste a few millimetres. Sorry if I hurt Apple designer feelings. Very annoying to me, I need to give presentations and cannot even connect to a beamer via HDMI anymore? I can debate the USB ports and live with one or another adapter but especially as a business user, an IT pro, I like to go for functions and not good looks only. I fortunately can afford to stick with what I have right now until another Mac offers something more valuable than fancy looks. Somebody mentioned Finder, yeah, still horrible. Give developers an API to fix what SIP (which is great) has killed accidentally. Bigger touchpad? I do not know, yet, need to try this. For the next version, I am not expecting much more than a Mac with decent and recent hardware.

I do homemade YouTube videos. I can’t wait for my new 15″ MacBook Pro. I’m not a professional, but for a laptop this is an amazing content-creating machine. It will do everything I need it to do in a timely manner. I ordered the Radeon Pro 460 and couldn’t be more excited.

Sloppy and inaccurate presentation of test results. In order to know exactly what we are looking at here, can the authors of this article please provide for all test results the exact CPU and GPU used?

For example, above in one test you compared the MBP 13″ 2016 i5 chip to the MBP 15″ 2016 i7 chip. Comparing an i5 chip to an i7 chip without providing us with the results of the MBP 13″ i7 chip is useless.

Do all of the models or none of the models, and please be clear and concise in reporting your test results.

I have the new Mac. I didn’t care what anyone said and I just bought the best one you can get in the store. It’s amazing. Honestly no laptop on the market can even touch it in terms of pure pleasure and experience.